


gonna save me (soothe me daily)

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Season/Series 02, Undercover Jemma Simmons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25069006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: When Jemma wakes to find Grant Ward sitting on the edge of her bed, she isn’t frightened.
Relationships: Jemma Simmons/Grant Ward
Comments: 9
Kudos: 104





	gonna save me (soothe me daily)

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure: I originally started writing this several years ago, stalled on it, abandoned it, and then a few weeks ago spent a few hours late one night rewriting it. The next morning, I decided I hated it and it would have to be heavily reworked. Since then, I haven't touched it at all, aside from running it through spellcheck this morning.
> 
> I still hate it and it doesn't do what I want it to do, but at least it's finished. I am sick and miserable and just don't think I'm up to writing today, so...desperate times. It may not be great, but it's still a fic for the week. Please be gentle. <3

When Jemma wakes to find Grant Ward sitting on the edge of her bed, she isn’t frightened.

She should be, of course—there’s plenty of reason for it—but she’s not.

It might be because of her dream. It was a good one, for once, and she’s reluctant to shake off the peaceful remnants. It could be her lingering exhaustion. Or perhaps it’s merely the atmosphere; the shadows in the bedroom are long (she must have slept the whole day away) and, combined with the lovely yellow walls, the room feels warm and safe.

Whatever the reason, there’s no fear in her. She curls her arm under her head and watches him watch her, enjoying how easy it is to breathe. She so rarely wakes well these days; this is a gift.

“Hey, Simmons,” Ward says after a moment or two. She wonders if he was waiting for her to panic or shout; his eyes are very curious, even if his voice is casual.

“Hello, Ward.”

“So.” He lays his hand on her hip, warm and heavy even through her blankets. “Hydra, huh?”

“So it would seem,” she agrees. He must know she’s nothing of the sort, but if he doesn’t mean to give her away (yet, at least), she’s hardly going to do it herself. The walls have ears, after all.

“Huh,” he says. “Dangerous.”

Whether he means spying or working for Hydra in general, he’s not wrong.

“No more so than skydiving,” she says, and it makes him smile. “What are you doing here?”

She’d rather ask where he’s been, but as a loyal agent of Hydra, Jemma isn’t to know that he spent a good six months held prisoner by SHIELD—or that he escaped and promptly fell off the grid three months ago. Her curiosity on that score will unfortunately need to remain unsated.

…Or not, perhaps, because Ward’s answer begins with, “I was with a different branch.”

“Really?” she asks, startled. Whitehall controls most of North America; what other options did Ward have at hand? “Which one?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he dismisses. “Point is, it didn’t work out, so I bailed. Got here a few hours ago and after my debrief, they told me an old friend was here.” He smiles slowly. “Wasn’t expecting _you_.”

“I wasn’t expecting you, either,” she says, in blatant understatement.

His presence isn’t the only unexpected thing about this situation, however. Nor is her continuing lack of fear. The warmth of his hand—still heavy on her hip—seems to be seeping through the blankets and her skin. It sinks into her very bones and spreads throughout her entire body, gathering—most interestingly—in her lower abdomen.

For all that feeling arousal instead of fear when faced with Ward is the last thing she would have expected, it’s very pleasant. Perhaps _too_ pleasant.

She mustn’t allow her odd mood to make her unwary. This is still the most dangerous man she knows—a man who has deliberately and with intent caused her great harm.

So, as much as part of her (a very _specific_ part) urges her to pull him down on top of her, to shove her blankets aside and wrap herself around him, she doesn’t. Instead, she pushes herself up and back to sit against the headboard. When Ward’s hand slides off her hip with the movement, he makes no move to replace it.

His gaze, however, sharpens.

“You’re not scared of me,” he says.

Strangely, no—but it seems a dangerous thing to admit, so she dodges the implied question.

“Should I be?” she asks.

“Not at all.” He grins. “We’re all on the same side here.”

This, too, should frighten her. If he’s not revealing her true loyalties—and he must know them—he has a reason for it, and that reason isn’t likely to be good. Yet fear stubbornly refuses to make an appearance. There’s no surge of adrenaline, no desire to flee.

She just feels…settled. It’s odd.

But it’s nice, too. So much of her time has been spent in fear and panic lately; it’s a relief to be free of it, if only for a moment.

Thoughts of fear and panic remind her of her cover, and she frowns at Ward. If he’s going to play along, she needs to play her part as well. Before she can decide what her cover would ask in this situation, however, he takes a pointed look around the room.

“So what happened that you rate a recovery suite?” he asks. The quick once-over he gives her leaves her feeling bizarrely exposed, and she draws her knees up. “Are you hurt? Do I need to kill someone?”

“No,” she says, choosing not to examine the apparent sincerity of the offer. “I was exhausted, that’s all.”

“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

There’s no reason not to tell him what a good portion of Hydra—Whitehall and Bakshi included—already knows.

“There was a containment failure,” she says, and Ward’s face, surprisingly, softens with sympathy.

“Oh, Simmons,” he says, reaching out to cover her hand with his. “That must’ve been tough after what happened.”

After the Chitauri virus, he means, and he’s very, very correct. From the first moment the alarm for the containment breach sounded, Jemma was fighting panic—and her close involvement in the situation certainly didn’t help.

“Yes,” she agrees quietly. “But my previous experience meant that I was called in to assist. One of the biolabs had been experimenting with weaponizing a very virulent disease, you see, and half the building was infected. I had to develop and synthesize a cure.”

She takes a slow, deep breath, remembering the terror of the horrid three days she spent working the problem—but it’s only memory, and it can’t touch her here. (Unlike Ward, whose hand is still over hers, once again warming her through. She should pull her hand away. She doesn’t.)

“By the time the outbreak was handled,” she continues, putting all other thoughts aside, “I was dead on my feet. Dr. Whitehall generously offered me the use of a suite, rather than have me collapse on my way home.”

Ward’s eyebrows lift slightly. “That _is_ generous.”

“He was one of the infected,” she explains.

His eyebrows rise higher. “And you saved his life.”

The surprise is only natural. Whitehall is not only one of Hydra’s heads, he’s—by all accounts—one of the most dangerous. Most heads are cunning and ruthless and given to torture and murder, but Whitehall, on top of all that, also enjoys human experimentation. Among the many things her spying has uncovered, the worst discovery thus far has been the revelation that Whitehall perfected the brainwashing process.

There are good, loyal SHIELD agents in this building who have been forced into serving Whitehall’s cause—all of their morals and personalities and _selves_ wiped blank like a slate, to be replaced with empty drones who are all too _happy to comply_.

It’s sickening. It’s horrifying. And Whitehall is the man who made it happen.

She hates that she had to save him, but…

“Yes,” she says, “and he was very grateful. Thus, the room.”

“Huh,” he repeats, studying her with curious eyes.

Was that enough? Does Ward understand?

Of course he does. He himself spent a full year spying on their team, playing Coulson in a bid for the secret of GH-325. Surely the dreadful calculations Jemma made four hours into her study of the virus, when she first heard Whitehall had caught it, are clear to him.

He must know that there were other scientists working the problem as well. That it was bound to be solved eventually either way, with or without her involvement—that she chose to solve it herself and reap the benefits of saving Whitehall’s life, rather than bargain on the chance that no one else would be able to develop a cure before Whitehall died.

Ward must understand. There’s no reason for him to be studying her so—and yet he does.

Having all of his attention focused on her like this—in a way it never was, back on the Bus—stirs something in her that couldn’t be further from unease.

It’s long past time for a change of subject.

“What about you?” she asks. “Dare I hope that you’re _not_ in need of medical attention?”

“Not a scratch,” he says, and spreads his hands wide. The motion shifts the sleeves of his jacket back, drawing her eyes to his wrists—to the scars that stand as evidence of his suicide attempts. His voice is softer when he adds, “Well…not a recent one, at least.”

She drags her eyes back up to meet his, and knows at once that _he_ knows it was she who saved his life when he tried to end it.

“Good,” she says quietly. “I’m glad.” It’s even, oddly, true—but the heavy topic, however much is left unspoken, threatens her peaceful mood. So she forces a lighter tone to add, “And astonished. I hardly know what to do with you when you’re not injured.”

Ward grins. “I’ve got a few ideas.”

The innuendo in his tone is clear—though whether it’s genuine is another matter entirely.

“Do you?” she asks.

“Oh, you have no idea.”

“Tempting,” she says—honestly. It _should_ be terrifying, but it just isn’t. “However, I’m afraid any suggestions of that nature will have to wait.”

“Right,” he says, eyes drifting toward the ceiling. “Walls have eyes, and all that.”

“Quite,” she agrees.

She’s hardly in any hurry to give the men and women on surveillance duty any kind of show, after all.

“In that case,” Ward says, and takes her hand in his. The sweep of his thumb over her knuckles sends a thrill up her spine. “Can I buy you dinner?”

_Buying_ her dinner implies going somewhere—leaving the building and, with it, Hydra’s watchful eye. Surely this, the suggestion of Ward getting her alone, should finally bring on her fear. Surely the prospect of putting herself at his mercy should terrify her.

Yet once again, fear stubbornly refuses to make an appearance. She’s only eager, pleased at the idea of sharing a meal with a friend (a _friend_?) after all her months spent alone and undercover here.

It’s foolish. She knows it’s foolish.

And yet, her “Yes, please,” is unhesitating.

Ward grins. “Great.”

He looks flatteringly happy—a thought which somehow leads her to remember that she hasn’t showered in _three days_. (Perhaps even four, depending on precisely how long she slept.)

“Just let me freshen up first,” she requests hastily.

“Sure thing,” Ward says. Considerately, he releases her hand and shifts back, making room for her to leave the bed. “Take your time.”

“I won’t be a moment,” she promises, and—daring to squeeze his arm in passing—hurries off to the en suite.

When she looks in the mirror, she’s not surprised to find herself smiling.

+++

Grant waits until he hears the shower start to let himself smile.

Playing test subject for that jackass Malick wasn’t fun (though paying him back for it sure was), but he’s gotta admit—he can’t fault the results. His brand new Gifted powers have opened all kinds of doors for him in just the last three hours.

Turns out human emotions work on a sliding scale, and thanks to Malick, Grant’s got a universal remote. Dialing down Bakshi and then Whitehall’s natural suspicion while dialing up the trust got him an open, friendly welcome. No questions about where he’s been, no interrogation, no nothing—just a “welcome to Hydra,” an offer of on-base quarters, and the very intriguing news that one of his old team was in a recovery suite on the fourth floor.

He can’t imagine what Coulson was thinking, sending _Simmons_ of all people undercover, but he might just send the guy a fruit basket for it. Whether or not he poisons the fruit…that’s a toss-up.

There was so much fear in Simmons, he could feel it from the second he stepped off the elevator. Poor thing; there’s no way she was properly prepared for this mission, and adding on the trauma of a virus running rampant in the building? Little wonder she was terrified.

And all it took to get a friendly greeting was to dial down that terror.

The arousal was a welcome bonus—and not one he had to use his powers to get. Just good old fashioned physical contact, playing on that crush he spent all of last year subtly encouraging.

He didn’t come in here intending to seduce Simmons. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he was gonna be _nice_ when he first walked in the room.

But after six months in one cell, being very rudely rejected by Skye, and three months in another, being experimented on by Malick’s now very dead scientists, Grant thinks he deserves something nice. And he’s always known Simmons—sweet, soft Simmons, who looks at him with those big doe eyes and worries over his every bruise—would be nice to have.

So, yeah. He wants her and, her fear gone, she wants him. Why _shouldn’t_ he indulge?

If it pisses Coulson off, well, that’s just a bonus. And hey, serves him right for tossing Simmons into the deep end without so much as a DWARF to watch her back.

The bathroom door opens, and Grant pushes to his feet.

“Sorry about that,” Simmons says as she steps out. Her hair is still wet, little damp tendrils escaping her ponytail to cling to her face.

It reminds him of treading water with her in the ocean after her little jump from the Bus, and makes his smile wider than it’d otherwise be.

“No problem,” he says, and extends his hand. “How’s Moroccan sound?”

He feels a little spark of—he doesn’t even know what. Embarrassed giddiness? Glee? Something like that—at the suggestion of her favorite food. Like she’s flattered he remembers.

(It’d be hard to forget. He knows _why_ Moroccan’s her favorite—that it’s nothing to do with any kind of cuisine preference and everything to do with how the first meal after surviving a serious brush with death tastes like. If they’d been flying over the South Atlantic instead of the North Atlantic, he’d probably be suggesting Brazilian instead.)

Despite that spark of emotion, Simmons’ smile is perfectly casual as she takes his hand. Impressive, considering how bad she’s always been at hiding what she’s thinking. As much as it’s a dick move, sometimes throwing someone into the deep end _does_ work.

“Sounds wonderful,” she says, and laces their fingers.

Grant feels a little spark of his own at that. He’s not an idiot; he knows it’s because he’s touch-starved after spending almost a year being denied human contact.

Doesn’t mean he doesn’t enjoy it.

“Great,” he says, tugging her into motion. “And maybe after, you could show me your apartment?”

Another spark from her, this one more easily deciphered: anticipation.

“I’d love to,” she says.

Oh yeah. Things are finally looking up.


End file.
